


Faerie Lights, Snapple Bottle Caps, Thunderstorms, Guitar Solos and Other Reasons to Fall in Love

by MellytheHun



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Anal Sex, Angst, Derek Needs To Use His Words, Derek Needs a Hug, Derek's Past Consent Issues with Kate, Emotional Recovery, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of past abuse, Oral Sex, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Recovery, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Top Derek Hale, Top Stiles Stilinski, Versatile Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, mentions of abuse, past abusive relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-07 01:14:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11048229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Derek Hale is a good frat brother, Stiles' best friend and a consistent, reliable presence. He's routine, he's stable and as constant as the rising sun.Except when it comes to partners.For some reason that Stiles hasn't quite worked out yet, Derek can't keep a partner for more than one night. It's an anomaly he's intent on getting to the bottom of.





	1. Modus Operandi

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was commissioned (the commissioner would prefer to remain anonymous), but be sure to thank them for the muse of this fic!
> 
> All characters belong to their respective creators and I do not own anything here except for the schmoop.
> 
> Because it's chaptered, it'll be posted piece by piece for fun story-telling. Enjoy!

It is said, at least by Stiles’ favorite professor, that one only majors in Arts or Writing to break their parents’ hearts. Some state that the notion is debatable, but Stiles tends to laugh at, and believe it – most of the time, anyway.

That all being said, Stiles’ professor has never met Derek Hale; a moving work of art that deserves epics and poems dedicated to just the structure of his jaw. The Arts must survive – not because civilization will fall to pieces without them, but because Derek Hale deserves them.

Derek’s tall – taller than most, anyway. Above average. Which, frankly, can describe just about any other aspect of him. He benches around 300lbs, he wears enormous metal chains around his neck while he just strolls on the stair-climber for an hour at a time, he un-ironically attends yoga classes on campus and has a pull-up bar hanging from the threshold of his bedroom door. He sometimes asks someone nearby to hug him while he does pull-ups because his own weight is too easy to pull up at this point. He does toe-touches on those bars like they’re nothing.

So. _Muscles_.

He’s a tough looking guy because of that – his face is usually stern, but it’s a pretty face and Derek usually doesn’t mean anything by that resting facial expression – his features are just really beautiful and vaguely threatening. He can’t be blamed for that. (Stiles thinks he should be awarded for it, in fact).

A lot of Weres can be like that, but Derek in particular fits the Were aesthetic of _Ethereal & Deadly_. Stiles is thinking Derek should trademark it – imagine how wide their market could be? From hair products (Derek’s thick, black hair is so rich and healthy, he looks like a walking Pantene commercial), to shaving kits (Derek’s always got this five o’clock shadow thing going on, but he never looks scruffy – just perfectly trimmed facial hair) – the options are endless, really.

Imagine the cologne line they could sell? They’d make millions. It’d be all woodsy, but kinda floral – just like how Derek smells. They’d bottle up Derek’s pheromones or whatever the Hell makes him smell amazing and sell it for fifty a pop and they’d be set for life. It would smell kinda like smoked roses, or like the type of fog that seems to actually blanket the ground without being creepy, but also with a romantic, dark honey smell or something. It’s nice, whatever smell it is that Derek’s body produces.

Stiles told Derek all that and Derek only rolled his eyes in response – when Stiles offered that they could have an entire line of clothing dedicated to leather jackets (like the one Derek wears on a daily basis), Derek shoved him off the couch.

So, to say Derek Hale is a ‘handsome guy,’ is doing him a great disservice; he can be positively breathtaking. Stiles theorized to Scott that Derek wasn’t even born – he was just sculpted by a Heavenly ray of light and came into the world over six feet tall and with a shoulder to waist ratio that gives Stiles heart palpitations.

The details are even finer – Derek’s eyes in particular are… _intense_ , to say the least. Being stared at by Derek Hale is intimidating, gratifying and heady. It’s intense to be under that scrutiny and preternatural beauty – when those eyes snap up to Stiles’ unexpectedly, it can be… well, frankly, it can be jarring if he isn’t expecting it. His heart will thud and then Derek’s eyes will get this worried look about them and Stiles shakes it off, says it’s nothing, but he gets the feeling that happens a lot to Derek - that Derek mistakenly believes he causes people anxiety with how he looks at _them_ rather than causing people anxiety with how he _looks_.

His eyes are framed by long, thick eyelashes - they’re lidded, bedroom eyes that keep on changing color but are always hypnotizing, bizarrely light hues in comparison to his tan skin. Sometimes they’re a sea foam color, sometimes they’re a dark emerald, sometimes they’re grey-to-blue and there is no discernible pattern. It’s not as though his eye color changes depending on what he’s wearing, like it does with hazel-eyed people. His eyes are just... kaleidoscope.

Beyond that, Derek keeps clean, but he’s always got that little bit of stubble around his sharp jawline, up to his pronounced cheekbones and even with his stern expression and intimidating strength, his eyes are kind.

Since he was very young, Stiles has always been a good judge of character. When his mother was still alive, she used to insinuate that he might be an Empath. He could take one look at a stranger and know whether or not he wanted to engage with them – he’s never been shy about voicing it either. Supernaturally inclined or not, Stiles is confident in his ability to feel out good and bad people.

When he spots someone suspicious, someone he doesn’t like – someone he might even hate on-sight – he voices it and leaves the vicinity. He’s uninterested in picking fights, but when he senses those bad vibes, he feels it’s his obligation to at least warn the people around him that might be inclined to listen to him. He always hits the mark – he’s never been wrong about a person, not about what they are. The Deep Down of them that he can see through to no matter how well-crafted their masks are.

The first time Stiles saw Derek – when he joined Derek’s fraternity, he knew right then and there that Derek Hale might be the kindest soul he ever meets.

There’s something entirely indescribable about him – Stiles can’t really explain how he knew from the start, but he just did. He shook Derek’s hand after some friendly hazing (as a rite of passage into the fraternity, of course) and that moment their hands touched, he knew. He just knew.

_“Good to have you, Stilinski,” Derek had said._

_“Call me Stiles,” he’d replied and Derek had smiled at him._

It’s undeniable to anyone – anyone partially or entirely blind, any sex-repulsed asexual person, anyone who had never before seen a human face– entirely, completely undeniable to all in existence that Derek Hale is beauty personified. He’s strength, he’s grace, he’s intellect and he exudes goodness like a fucking aura once you’re close enough to him to sense it whether you’re sensitive that sorta thing or not.

The un-deniability of his attractiveness is usually what people bring up when Stiles is being made fun of for spending so much time around Derek. They don’t sense Derek’s Goodness like Stiles can. He doesn’t see a halo over Derek’s head, he doesn’t see wings sprouting from Derek’s back and he doesn’t put Derek on a pedestal – not really. He admires Derek, wants to be more like him in a lot of ways – he’d like to emulate a ton of Derek’s charming qualities, but he knows Derek is a flawed person too.

Derek lacks basic social skills to a fault; he can seem unapproachable (which is a shame, really, because Stiles has found that Derek is a very good friend once you wrench him out of his shell), he can come off as gruff when that’s just his speaking voice, he can come off as harsh when he’s only being honest, he can come off as bored when that’s just how his face is.

He’s got a temper too – patience is not a virtue of Derek Hale’s. He’s fairly good at taking out his frustrations at the gym, but when he’s stuck somewhere, when he’s in an enclosed space, it’s not unheard of for him to smash his fists into walls, through doors or into someone’s face. Nine out of ten times, the person being punched in the face had it coming, but the point remains valid.

There was a party – one of Stiles’ first with the frat brothers – and some girl had passed out in one of the bedrooms of the frat house. Some creep with a camera had the very violent misfortune of being caught by Derek while removing the girl’s clothes.

Now, if it had been Stiles that found him, he’d have fetched another brother and then he and another one of his frat brothers would have taken that creep outside, deleted those photos and banned him from the house. Maybe they would’ve put some fear in him, dropped a couple threats and that would’ve been the end of that.

It was not Stiles that found this creep, though. It was Derek, and Derek does not have patience for what he refers to as, “predatory people.” Just by that wording, Stiles can tell something happened to Derek – or maybe something happened to one of Derek’s sisters or mother or something – because Derek can be protective, certainly, but something about sexually predatory people makes Derek positively _feral_.

He lifted that creep up from the ground by his neck, told him to drop the camera and the command was so loud, so deep, that everything in the house seemed to stop moving. This guy – Matt, they would later learn – dropped the camera and Derek made quick work of stomping on it, shattering what was probably at least a $400 camera into a thousand tiny pieces. He escorted Matt to the top of the stairs, released his neck and let the guy take maybe two or three rattling breaths in before _pushing him down the stairs_.

He was fine – the guy, Matt, was fine, thank God, because the thought of Derek Hale getting charged with murder in the second or third degree for doing what the American judicial system generally fails to would be too much of an injustice in the universe to bear. Still, it was Derek’s aggression showing itself – it was frightening to watch. Not just for Matt or Stiles, but, truly, for everyone.

_“You don’t cross paths with me again,” Derek had said in his deepest, most frightening voice as he had descended the stairs, “You don’t come near that girl again. You don’t come near this house again. These aren’t suggestions.”_

_The guy, still scrambling on the floor, trying to get up on what must have been nerve-wracked, numb legs, nodded vigorously and Derek stopped him moving again with a threatening foot placed very precariously on the crotch of his Matt’s jeans._

_Derek leaned down, his fangs protruded and he asked very seriously, “do you know what will happen if I get so much as a whiff of you again?”_

_The party having come to a full stop, attention was narrowed down to the unfolding events at the stairwell and everyone heard Derek say, clearly and with conviction, “I will fucking **castrate** you. Do we have an understanding?”_

_Nodding again, pathetic and terrified, Matt fled once Derek freed that guy of his misery, lifted his foot, told him to get the fuck out and they never did see or hear from that pervert again._

_Isaac had tentatively approached Derek first, muttered something to him and Derek shook his head, sighing and while conversation and relative cheer had begun to resume, Stiles was still able to hear Derek say, “I’m sorry. It’s just – it’s close to the full moon. I won’t get out of hand like that again. This is supposed to be a safe place. No one should feel scared coming here. I won’t stand for it. I just… sorry.”_

Some think that Derek takes his anger too far – other Weres on campus in particular take issue with how Derek conducts himself. They’d like for him to work more on conforming or blending in rather than worsening the violent stigma already on them, validating stereotypes and calling attention to himself in ways that are so violent and aggressive. Frankly, Stiles thinks it has little to do with Derek being a Were and that even if Derek were entirely human, he’d have reacted the same exact way.

Derek Hale has a guardian complex in him – he wants to serve and protect. He’d make a good doctor or a good soldier. He loves to protect others. He’s never said so out loud and maybe Derek doesn’t even know it himself, but Stiles knows. Stiles always knows.

Stiles can tell Derek is going to have a family someday and that family will be the safest in the world because Derek Hale would tear through a thousand monsters with his bare hands before letting an innocent bystander be hurt. He protects his own, he’s got that Pack mentality, even away from his family. He might not always handle his aggression well, some classmates have even said that his temper being out of control at times is abusive to those he lives with, that it’s a constant threat hanging in the air.

Stiles doesn’t know about anyone else in the house, but he certainly doesn’t feel that way. In fact, he feels safer with Derek around – even on full moon nights.

Some Were students go to a specialty housing unit on campus for full moon nights to be watched after, but Derek just holes up in his room. Nothing rattles, nothing breaks, no growls, howls or even footsteps are heard until sunrise. No one in the house honestly believes Derek would hurt them.

It’s that Goodness about him. Even if others can’t see it like Stiles can, it draws people to Derek. Those with fair instincts know – even unconsciously – that Derek Hale is a Good part of the world. Even when he’s throwing his fist through a door or kicking a hole into the wall.

Since alcohol does just about nothing to Derek, he doesn’t drink at the parties, but he does try to attend them all. He’s always sober and, occasionally, when he doesn’t want to attend, he’ll hide in his room, away from the parties altogether, away from the noise, music and smells that must be deafening and dizzying to his senses.

Derek gets his work in on time, he’s punctual, respectful and a diligent note-taker and his professors adore him for it. Derek works part-time at his brother’s auto-shop and, just like at school, his work ethic is beyond compare. He goes to the gym everyday, he runs five miles every other day, he reads fantasy books and philosophy books and it makes his brain so insanely interesting to pick.

All of this is to say that Derek Hale is a creature of habit and is loudly averse to any changes to his routines. He works on an inner-clock, his schedule almost never shifts, he is consistent, he is committed, he is true, he is straightforward, he is honest, he is reliable. A man built for serial monogamy.

That’s not how he is, though.

At almost every party, without fail, Derek takes someone up to his room – some random, lucky girl that is sober enough to keep his interest and give informed consent – they disappear up those stairs and Stiles’ chest burns with what someone might think is murderous jealousy. Stiles argues that it’s just acid reflux.

One might call that behavior – the behavior of never keeping one partner – a consistency of its own, but it’s not every party and, really, the only consistency about the behavior;

Is that it is never the same person twice.

Derek Hale doesn’t go out on dates, Derek Hale doesn’t hit on people, Derek Hale doesn’t buy flowers for anyone, Derek Hale doesn’t smile down at his phone when he texts, Derek Hale doesn’t take private phone calls, Derek Hale doesn’t stake claims, mark territory – nothing of the sort.

He catches and releases.

And, in most any other case, Stiles would say that it’s that man’s business and nobody else’s and he’d think of it no more.

He can’t let it go, though.

No matter how much time passes, he thinks about Derek, Derek leading some girl up those stairs, Derek choosing some girl who may as well be nameless and faceless and he knows Derek isn’t happy. Not just because he can sense it, being the Empath that he is, but because he can see the unhappiness on Derek’s face. He knows the difference between Happy Derek and Unhappy Derek.

He’s seen Derek happy.

When Stiles bought Derek a Fitbit for his birthday, Derek grinned at him. His smile was _beautiful_. He accepted that gift with such unassuming sweetness and _of course_ , it was something that would help him with _routine_. Of course he loved it.

When Stiles very respectfully asked Derek to explain what waning and waxing moon cycles do to Weres, Derek was so visibly pleased to answer his questions – that someone took an interest in _understanding_. He got to teach, which he loves – got to share a part of himself that no one usually asks after and it made him _happy_.

When Stiles offered to help Derek in restoring the car he’s been working on since _forever_ , Derek smirked, his eyes lit up and he and Derek spent the day joking, listening to old rock music and enjoying themselves in the sun, in the drive of the frat house.

He knows what Derek looks like when Derek is happy because he knows he’s made Derek happy before.

Derek has never looked happy taking a stranger up to his room and Stiles would like to stop trying to figure out the enigma that is Derek’s Hale’s one enormous and glaring inconsistency, but Stiles has never been known for his ability to let anything go and this, unfortunately, is no different.

He fixates on it like an impatient kid with loose tooth, clings onto it without wanting to but having nowhere else to put his hands.

He shuts his eyes and sees Derek’s face and he can’t help but wonder why he does what he does.

“There doesn’t always have to be a ‘why,’ Stiles. Sometimes things just are what they are. Stop imagining it, dude.”

“It fucking _haunts_ me, I can’t help it! It’s not like I want to imagine him fucking other people.”

“It’s creepy, Stiles,” Scott admonishes, “Just put it from your mind.”

“I can’t! Don’t you think I would if I could? It’s just – it’s _always_ someone different and he’s such a commitment-oriented guy, you know?” Stiles says while gesticulating widely and vaguely with his hands, “It doesn’t make sense with the – _the rest of him_ – like, I told you about that time he helped me finish that enormous paper for Comparative Law, right?”

Sighing heavily, Scott replies, “roughly five hundred times, Stiles, yes.”

“He actually _learned_ the material to help me!” Stiles exclaims, as though Scott had said nothing, “He didn’t just bullshit-help me! He fuckin’ rented textbooks and stayed up _all night_ with me! He knows more about that course than I do at this point and he’s in fucking _Engineering_! Scott, wishy-washy people don’t do stuff like that! You don’t have to be a Criminology major with me to know _modus operandi_ , Scott. People stick to specific behavioral patterns – wishy-washy people don’t pick a major in high school and stick with it through senior year of college without regret. Wishy-washy people don’t have vintage Mustangs they spend years bringing back from the brink of death. I’m telling you – something is wrong. The sleeping around thing is a symptom of something else.”

“Just because he likes to sleep around doesn’t mean he’s wishy-washy; you’re always telling me I should ‘widen my horizons,’ – maybe he’s just got a wide horizon.”

“I tell you to widen your horizons because you won’t try fucking _pistachio gelato_ , Scott, not because I feel like your pool of sexual partners is too limited or your chances for S.T.I’s are too slim,” Stiles complains, “And listen, I’m not slut-shaming here, okay? No shame on Derek for getting it and getting it often – more power to him – all I’m saying is that I don’t think it’s a thing that makes him _happy_. It seems more like a compulsion than anything else. His other relationships – with his sisters, his brother, his parents, his friends, professors, bosses – literally all of his other relationships are totally stable and long-lasting, but he doesn’t date and he never lays someone twice. To me, that seems… maybe… disordered, you know?”

Scott frowns at the sidewalk, readjusting his book-bag over his shoulder, “not wanting to date isn’t –"

“Dude, _Lydia Martin_ wanted to date him, and he was like ‘ _no, thanks_ ,’” Stiles argues incredulously, “She had an existential _crisis_ over it – no one’s ever been like ‘yeah, one ride’s enough for me, but thanks for the offer,’ to _her_ before. And for good fucking reason – have you ever watched her throw back a shot? Do you understand what her neck looks like? The neck isn’t even a part of the body that should turn anyone on and it’s like hers is explicitly sexual.”

Scott snorts a laugh and Stiles throws his arms up in frustration, “you’re not taking me seriously, dude! Turning down Aphrodite is not _normal_! We know he’s not a commitment-phobe, because he has commitments to people, jobs and places all over, but he doesn’t stick to one romantic partner and it doesn’t make sense. It’s been half a year, a party almost every other week, a new partner every party. _Patterns_ , Scott. Patterns that go against the grain of all his other behavioral and social patterns. I’m telling you. Something’s wrong.”

“I think you might just be jealous,” Scott offers slyly.

“Of course I’m jealous!” Stiles shouts, “How could I not be jealous!? That’s aside from the point!”

“Jealousy isn’t necessarily assumed. Depends on what sorta partner you like,” Isaac pipes up, still looking down at his phone distractedly, “Boyd said Derek’s an unreal lay, but he tops from the bottom. If you’re into more submissive guys, Derek probably isn’t your type anyway.”

After a dismissive snort, Stiles starts loftily, “ _all_ types of guys are the guys I’m into and if I –"

...

Stiles freezes where he stands as Isaac and Scott walk past him, undeterred and unbothered by the sudden shift in the universe, it would seem.

It takes a moment for Scott to realize Stiles has fallen behind and he stops to look back at Stiles a beat or so before Isaac does. Some silence stretches before anyone speaks, though a thick layer of caution falls over everything.

“Wait,” Stiles begins quietly and stiltedly, not looking at either Isaac or Scott, “… are you talking about _Vernon_ Boyd?”

“Yeah…?” Isaac answers, looking stiff, as if at any moment now, Stiles might morph into a bloodthirsty spawn of Satan.

“Like, _black_ Vernon Boyd?”

Isaac glances between Stiles and Scott twice before looking back at Stiles bizarrely and asking incredulously, “… do you know _another_ Vernon Boyd? _Yes_ , the _black Vernon Boyd_ , Stiles. The _only_ Vernon Boyd literally any of us know – that one.”

Stiles is still uncomprehending.

“Boyd is a cis dude, though…”

“Yeah…?” Isaac trails off.

Stiles finally stares directly into Isaac’s eyes, looking partway fascinated and partway infuriated. His eyes are narrowed venomously, staring daggers into Isaac’s and Scott’s taking his inhaler out.

“Are you telling me… that _Derek Hale_ is _bi_?”

Isaac shrugs, “I dunno. He’s not straight, but I don’t know what he identifies as.”

“ _Derek Hale is **bi** and **no one told me**_!?” Stiles shrieks furiously.

“It’s not like he keeps it a secret or anything,” Isaac tells him defensively.

“You’re both the worst friends ever, how did you not tell me!?” Stiles scolds them both as he runs past them at top speed.

Scott calls after him and Isaac says something unflattering about what standards Stiles holds his ‘friends,’ to under his breath, but Stiles doesn’t stop. He races to the Sciences building, pushing past unknowing students that do not realize the crisis he’s just been thrust into which he inwardly decides is entirely the entire world’s fault because _no one told him Derek Hale is bisexual_.

As Stiles races through campus, colliding with just about everyone, people drop books, drinks, food – they’re shoved by gangly arms, some nearly stumble over his long legs as Stiles zips past them in his rush and rather than apologizing when someone yells out to him to slow down, cool it, chill out, and ‘fuck you, dude,’ Stiles just yells back, “ _he’s **bi** and **no one told me**_!”

After a clearing of the Sciences building that The Flash would’ve been impressed by, Stiles realizes Derek must not have class in the mornings. Bereft, but still motivated, he exits the building, pushes over someone he easily profiles as a freshman, steals their long board and takes off yet again.

When he makes it to the house on King’s River Avenue, he rides up to the brick stairs, he abandons the skateboard at the foot, takes two flights of stairs in what seems like two long strides and then he’s bursting into Derek’s room, slipping down the hardwood hallway and busting Derek’s bedroom door open without so much as a knock. There’s no time for pleasantries when _Derek Hale is bi and **no one told him**_.

Dressed in thick, soft flannel pants, a threadbare cotton shirt and donning some charming bedhead, Derek’s sitting at his desk, hands paused from their typing on his laptop and looking at Stiles with some measure of amused surprise.

“Uhm, Stiles? What are you doing here?”

“Restoring equilibrium to the universe,” Stiles answers vaguely, doubling over and trying to catch his breath.

Laughing quietly to himself, Derek asks conversationally, “that so? How can I be of help?”

“Oh my God, I need to fuck you,” Stiles pants out, face blotchy red, sweating lightly.

The air changes in the room, like they dropped in altitude or something. Derek cocks a brow and asks, “…right now?”

The fact that Derek sounds like he’s considering their options in response to Stiles’ lack of a filter – that he didn’t say “what the fuck are you thinking,” or “in your fucking dreams, Stiles,” – that Derek is looking at him quite seriously now makes Stiles whine high in his throat.

“Uhm – like _right now_ , right now? Right now, uh – water would be good right now, actually, if you’ve got.”

Derek takes a bottle from his bedside table and tosses it Stiles’ way. They’ve been friends long enough now that Stiles and he are far beyond being weirded out by sharing food or drinks. Stiles throws back the entire bottle and then rests against the threshold of Derek’s bedroom door.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Stiles answers, his breath finally catching up to him, “Yeah, I’m okay. I think I might’ve come on a little strong before –"

“A little, yeah,” Derek smirks.

Stiles smiles at him, high on adrenaline and endorphins and he expects Derek to smile back at him, but Derek’s expression very suddenly dims. It’s like shudders are closed over his eyes and he briefly looks away, everything about his energy is quieted. Somehow, dejected.

“You really wanna do this?” Derek asks, as though it were some great pity.

Stiles is good at this bit – the reading-between-the-lines bit. He eventually wants to work for the F.B.I – he knows when a statement is really masking a question and a question is masking a statement.

It’s not a real question – it’s a warning. Stiles has willfully ignored enough warning signs in his life to know one when he hears one.

He knows how this game is played; he doesn’t know how well Derek plays the game or if Derek knows what game he’s playing at all. Stiles can’t tell if he has the higher ground or not because he’s never had to step to this dance with _Derek_ before, but he’s eager to learn. Eager to win.

He levels Derek with a solemn stare and asks, “what happens if we do?”

“We’re not friends anymore.”

There it is.

No questions asked, no additional warning tags, no room for negotiation.

Cracks – _deep_ crevasses spontaneously form in Stiles’ chest. His heart sinks into his stomach and anxiety washes over everything. He needs to find a way to solidify everything around them again before their relationship crumbles and falls away to dust.

Derek is _Good_ , Derek makes him feel safe, protected – Derek is his best friend (though he can’t tell Scott that – Stiles believes a person can have more than one best friend, but Scott would disagree and get all territorial – it doesn’t actually matter).

The panic and the pain doesn’t really come from the thought that this conversation alone could destroy what they have – the laughing, the gift-trading, the studying, the working-on-Derek’s-car-while-not-really-working-on-Derek’s-car-because-they’re-so-much-more-interested-in-trading-personal-anecdotes, the trust, the Goodness, the happiness... this proposition could ruin all of that – if he’s made Derek uncomfortable already by announcing his intentions so unabashedly, the friendship might be doomed as it is.

That’s not what causes the pain and panic, though. Not entirely, anyway.

The thought that he’d be so easily tossed aside is what pains him more than he knows how to word.

“…just like that?”

Glancing up from under his brow, Derek asks him to elaborate without actually asking. Derek is good at that – communicating via eyebrows.

Stiles shakes his head, sadness writ over his face when he adds, “you could just… leave me behind? That easily?”

“It wouldn’t be _easy_ for me,” Derek tells him, looking wrong-footed, “I can’t… I don’t… _do_ … what other people do, Stiles. I couldn’t keep you in my life afterward like that… it wouldn’t be the same.”

Bells ring in Stiles' head. There’s his opening – this is how the game is played, how the dance is choreographed. Stiles makes his move, cornering the King at the back of the chessboard, knowing precisely what he’s doing.

“What if I don’t want it to be the same?”

Derek’s eyes flash up to Stiles’ and it’s heady, it’s suspenseful and exhilarating the way it always is when Derek’s eyes meet his unexpectedly. He stands his ground, though and Derek stands his.

“What do you mean?” Derek asks unwaveringly.

“What if I don’t _want_ things to be like they were?” Stiles extrapolates, “What if I want more than friendship with you?”

“You can’t just… no. That’s not how it works,” Derek responds vaguely, looking confused and put-off, “That’s not how this works.”

“Me wanting shit doesn’t really have a rulebook, Derek,” Stiles answers, “How this works – _this_ – this _thing_? It works like this; I want you to give me a chance to prove to you I’m worth keeping around.”

“Stiles,” Derek sighs deeply, “of course you’re worth keeping around. That’s not the issue.”

“So there _is_ an issue,” Stiles states more than asks.

Derek looks caught and that’s all the answer Stiles needs.

He _knew_ Derek’s behavior was disordered – he _knew_ something was wrong in that important Very Wrong way. In his heart of fucking hearts, he could see the sadness, he knew Derek was unhappy, that there was something _wrong_ and he can’t help but feel resentful of everyone that has doubted him up to this point. And it’s not even the first time Stiles has had the chance to say, ‘you should’ve listened to me,’ ‘I was right, again,’ 'I told you so,' or ‘you are consistently wrong, Scott, put your faith in my brain, my brain is a good brain and yours is a bad brain with bad ideas.’ All of which he has said before.

He hates that no one listens to him when he voices real concerns – he’s always been good at this – the knowing when something is just Wrong – he never misses the mark. Even so, Scott doubts him, Isaac doubts him, Allison doubts him, Boyd doubts him – but they shouldn’t. Stiles does not, in any way, claim to be a genius or omniscient or otherwise all-knowing. Stiles is just self-aware. He knows he has a very specific set of skills and one of them is knowing in absolutes what another person is feeling or thinking (in broad senses). He knows when something or someone is Good or Bad, when something or someone is Happy or Unhappy, Okay or decidedly Not Okay.

Something tells Stiles, something deep down in him, tells him something’s wrong with Derek. That there’s at least some sliver of him that is definitely, sincerely and very truly Not Okay.

Derek puts on a good show – he really does and Stiles gives him credit for that. From where Stiles is sitting, he can see that Derek’s a master of the art of “I’m Fine,” that he is fluent in the dialect of “Don’t Worry About Me.” Derek can distract, project, deny and derail like a goddamn contortionist.

Stiles can appreciate that as an art form, he can even appreciate the maladaptive martyr-complex that probably fuels it just for how impressively enormous it must be. Stiles doesn’t want to watch that contortion show anymore, though. He wants to see the chink in the armor – he wants to see the bruise, the cut, the scar, the hole that something or someone left in Derek. Stiles wants to see it so he can soothe it, so he can mend it, so he can keep it company, so he can treat it gently and fill the gaps with affection.

Stiles means well. Even when he’s pushy and obnoxious, which he won’t deny he is. He doesn’t know when to let things go, he can’t let a loose tooth just be. He can’t ignore someone in pain and it might not always be very charming, but it’s done a lot of good, overall. He sticks to it because there’s a system, because it _works_ , because he’s _good_ at it. He can be good for Derek too. He knows he can.

He just needs an opportunity to prove it.

“Date me.”

“What?”

Stiles repeats, more sternly, “date me, Derek.”

Derek very nearly looks angry with him – Stiles knew this would strike a nerve, but he expected Derek to be a touch more vulnerable or subdued – not angry. He can improvise, though – Stiles is good on his toes. When the pressure is on, Stiles is good in a crisis. Stiles mostly lives in a state of Completely Unprepared, so it’s par for the course.

“I don’t date.”

“Why not?”

Brow furrowing in frustration, Derek replies, “because I don’t and it’s not your business.”

Stiles knows that’s a fair answer and he should turn tail and leave Derek to live his life the way he wants, but… well, he’s got a loose tooth.

“I could make an argument that it is, actually,” Stiles begins, knowing he’s pushing the envelope, “I want to date you. More than is probably reasonable or sane. I’ll take a rejection, Derek, but can I at least know why? What it is that I do or don’t do – what I am or what I’m not that makes me so unsuitable?”

“It’s not you, Stiles,” Derek insists, “It’s – I just – I just _don’t_.”

“If I offer a sort of…uhm… _deal_ , would you consider it?”

Curious, Derek tilts his head, assessing Stiles before answering, “depends. What do you want?”

“Three dates,” Stiles replies seriously and with such certainty that it leaves no room for negotiations – that means he’s met Derek where he stands; Derek can walk away, can drop the conversation and even drop Stiles. But if there’s any wiggle room, if there’s any chance Derek is willing to give him, Stiles is Hell bent on finding it.

“Just three,” Stiles assures, noting Derek’s disagreeable expression, “If by the end of the third, I haven’t changed your mind, feel free to cast me down to the bowels of Hell or never speak to me again – whatever it is you gotta do. But if we make a deal – if we can make this an… experiment? Of sorts? Then maybe you’d keep me as a friend when it’s all over – if it… if it _is_ all over by the end.”

Derek has always had a strong brow, but his look of aggravated bewilderment is bordering on ridiculous. Stiles slumps more against the threshold of the door and repeats, “three dates. Just three. Will you give me a shot?”

The ensuing silence is heavy and Stiles can hear his own heart in his ears – it’s nearly giving him a headache. That might be the adrenaline rush, though. It’s embarrassing more, knowing that if Stiles is just about deafened by his heartbeat, then Derek can probably _feel it_ down to his fucking toes.

Derek’s eyes are contemplative, not shut down but not entirely kind either. His arms cross over his chest and Stiles absently thinks that Derek is unconsciously closing off his body language. Maybe already shutting him down and out. Then, still looking suspicious, Derek very cautiously nods and replies slowly, “…fine. Fine, Stiles. Three dates.”

Stiles grins, his face lighting up with it – he knows it’s contagious, he’s always been told his laughter and his smiles are contagious and Derek catches it. He catches it very reluctantly, but the smile worms its way onto Derek’s face despite his best efforts to fight it and he ducks his head away shyly. Which is so unfair, really – Derek doesn’t smile very often and he always hides it away when he does. Stiles would like to have a word with him about that, but not now – he’s already pushed his luck far beyond where he thought it could reach.


	2. The Waterfront

“The Waterfront? Are you serious?”

Stiles blushes, fighting the urge to toy with his collared shirt – Allison dressed him for this event as a favor and he’s pretty sure that if he moves anything by a quarter of an inch, it’ll all be ruined and fall off of him or something. He keeps his hands tightly curled on the wheel of the Jeep as he pulls into the parking lot of The Waterfront and replies, “as it turns out, I  _ am _ serious.”

Leaning forward on his knees, Derek tilts his head up to look toward the restaurant disbelievingly through the window. His brows are high, his hair is swept back in what Stiles inwardly calls his Prince Eric style and he’s nicely dressed – the way Stiles warned him to be. He’d said to dress nice, but didn’t actually tell Derek where he was taking them – not because he’s embarrassed, precisely, but because he knew Derek wouldn’t have willfully gotten into the Jeep if he’d known in advance. The Waterfront is a pretty bold move, Stiles knows.

“Is that a live band?”

“On the roof? Yeah,” Stiles answers, taking a ticket for overpriced paid parking, then patiently finding a spot, “I reserved a table for us up there – it’s oldies, soul and blues night.”

Derek side-eyes him suspiciously, “…  _ you _ managed a reservation… on  _ the roof  _ of  _ The Waterfront _ … how?”

“I  _ may _ have implied you’re dying,” Stiles admits with a smirk and a noncommittal hand wiggle, “So, don’t look like super psyched or pumped and if anyone asks about it, tell them that the treatment is experimental, but going well.”

“Oh my God.”

“I swear, you won’t regret this, Derek.”

“I’m already regretting it.”

“Don’t be such a sourwolf!”

“Right. I now, officially, regret everything. Every decision I’ve ever made. All of my decisions have lead me here for some reason, so I regret them all.”

“That you and Scott call  _ me _ theatrical is insulting at this point.”

Derek does smile at that, shaking his head in faux disapproval. It’s so endearing, it almost hurts. Stiles smiles back at him instead of accusing Derek of liking him (which Stiles knows he totally does).

When they make their way to the restaurant, Stiles announces their reservation for two under ‘Stilinski,’ – they get a bit of a stink-eye from the stuck-up host who can read Stiles’ annual income by his signature, but Derek bites his tongue and Stiles only smiles politely, keeping his cool in the hopes of helping Derek keep his. Once signed in, they’re lead past indoor, lower-level diners and up twisting iron steps to the flat roof of The Waterfront. 

The roof has five tables and is usually booked through the entire year – it’s a rare treat, reserved mostly for the very wealthy and the entirely human. Derek, by where Stiles is standing, is clearly catching the abhorrent whiff of the Upper Class if the unhappy wrinkle of his sensitive nose is anything to go by. 

Stiles is still sort of amazed that prejudices against Were’s still exist. Seems counterintuitive to the entire construction and furthering of mankind – to split people up. Stiles has said this about segregation and prejudice before – it makes no sense to split people up. It’s like no one learned anything from Scooby-Doo. Major lessons; monsters are real – they’re just people, those people are usually rich, old, white men and never,  _ ever _ split up. 

Somehow Stiles doubts he’ll be at the forefront of a civil rights movement this night, though, so he doesn’t say anything.

There are faerie lights hanging everywhere, the night sky is full of stars like a jewelry store diamond case, the glowing moon is high and bright, the band is powerful, but not overwhelming – a tall, thickly figured woman of color is singing something deep and slow and there’s a small orchestra on the stage. They’ve got a string section (the violinists even part their hair in the same ways - they look like one, fluid motion. There are two cellos, and the bass looks freshly waxed), they’ve got instruments posed near the players that would substitute for a woodwinds section if it were needed too (the saxophones are out already, though, gleaming under the faerie lights like liquid gold). There’s brass and woodwinds - the band makes ten people sound like a hundred and the piano is a baby grand, shining brilliantly with its top up – it’s all a bit intimidating for a guy who doesn’t own a pair of socks  _ without _ holes in them. Stiles doesn’t let that show on his face, though.

The two of them are graciously seated, handed menus and left to their own devices for a few minutes. Derek looks down at the single sheet he’s been handed – the courses at The Waterfront change seasonally, so there’s only three dinner dishes to choose from, but the bar’s drink selection is impressive and the desserts have (unsurprisingly) already captured Stiles’ attention. 

“Get a Lemon Drop.”

“Why? You know alcohol does nothing to me,” Derek mutters, still reading over the menu.

“Yeah, but you like tart stuff. It’s sweet and sour with a tiny kick. It’s just vodka in there – I think you’ll like it.”

Derek cocks a brow at him and Stiles smiles adoringly at it – Derek’s communication skills are mostly limited to Eyebrow Language, but it’s something weirdly charming about him. Another person might describe this trait as Derek being poorly socialized, but Stiles likes Derek’s social skills quite fine just the bizarre way they are. Stiles just likes  _ him _ – everything about him. 

“I assume you’re not drinking?”

“I am not,” Stiles affirms, “I have romantic intentions to see through and alcohol makes me way more confident than I have any right to be. Can’t make an ass out of myself on only the first date. Gotta stay sharp.”

Derek snorts humorously, sipping at his ice water and then they’re greeted again by their server – they make their orders and when the menus are taken from them, Derek brings up that he didn’t see prices next to any of the dishes or drinks – Stiles reminds him that they’re at The Waterfront, of course the place is too high-class to show prices, but Derek worries at him.

“Don’t worry about it, dude,” Stiles assures him, “You agreed to go on a  _ date _ with me – a thing you’ve denied yourself of for some reason and I want the date to be… unforgettable. I want it this way – you deserve it. Money ain’t a thing. Not for you. Not tonight.”

Derek’s eyebrows speak to a combination of flattery and concern, but he drops the issue, seeming flustered. Stiles figures it must be hard to argue at such a good thing for too long; the music is incredible, the atmosphere is warm and adventurous at the same time, somehow, mellow enough not to overwhelm Derek’s senses and everyone needs pampering from time to time. Derek Hale seems overdue for some tender love and care and Stiles is pretty honored to have the chance to pay that debt. 

The band plays an astonishingly pleasant cover of ‘ _Bring It On Home To Me_ ,’ by Sam Cooke and Stiles never thought he’d like goat cheese, but when it’s served with his steak, he swears he’ll never eat another variation of cheese again (which is a lie that Derek calls him out on, but agrees with him that the dishes are unbelievably good). From where they are, so high up, they’re able to see fireworks going on around a bonfire at the beach and Stiles almost feels bad that he can’t tip the party-goers for making the sky light up for his date. Flashes of red, gold, green, blue, purple and pink all move across Derek’s hair and high cheekbones, reflecting in his seafoam eyes when he looks up at the starbursts with a soft admiration and wonderment. It’s unbearably attractive.

A lot of the songs played are throw-backs and it gets them talking about oldies and oldies culture. They talk about Derek’s car and what automobile graveyards he’s visited recently to get pieces he needs for his retro Mustang. 

“It’s not  _ retro _ – if anything, it’s  _ vintage _ and it’s a popular old model,” Derek criticizes, licking some sugar from the rim of his cocktail glass, “It’s a Shelby G.T five-hundred C-R. It’s not antiquated yet. People pay out the ass for recreations of that model, you know.”

“I did not know, but I do now,” Stiles smiles, then gestures at the drink in Derek’s hand, “Do you like it? The Lemon Drop?”

“I do, actually,” Derek notes with some surprise, “How’d you know I would?”

“Besides the insane amount of Sour Power Belts you buy yourself whenever you go downtown with your sisters? Cause that was a pretty good clue.”

Derek gives him a dry look Stiles doesn’t believe for a second and then he expounds, “I’ve just noticed you have a pattern with tart desserts. I figured it’d be a win. Vodka for some heat, sugar for sweet, lemon for sour - seemed like it'd be a win with you. Like – with Allison, she didn’t drink til she met Scott. She was nervous about starting, like she’d immediately get drunk to the point of illness or something from just one drink. I knew what sorta coffees she likes and suggested a White Russian to start her off and that’s basically the only thing she’ll ask for now. Once I get an idea of someone’s tastebuds, I’m pretty good at guiding them in the right direction.”

“Vodka’s gentle,” Derek agrees, “You’re good at that, though – knowing what people like or need before they do themselves.”

No one ever really acknowledges that skill in Stiles, so he struggles to meet Derek’s eyes. It’s hard for him to take compliments seriously - he’s usually able to laugh it off or shift the subject off himself to avoid accepting admiration, but it’s impossible to take anything Derek says as anything other than seriously. 

Derek’s considered a poor conversationalist by most, but in truth, he just speaks when he needs to - he doesn’t waste energy on fluff or falsehoods or idle chat. He says what he means and he means what he says; it’s always made Stiles acutely aware of Derek’s conversation. Derek wouldn’t say something like that if he didn’t wholly believe it and because Derek’s praise and words are so sparse as it is, it’s empowering to be at the end of Derek Hale’s encouragement and esteem.

Those polychromatic eyes have him pinned, looking earnest, awaiting his response.

Stiles feels his face and ears heat up and he responds quietly, “thank you. Observation is sort of my thing.”

“You must be a Doyle fan, then.”

“Pardon me, my good man, but that is  _ Sir  _ Doyle to you and are you  _ joking _ ?” Stiles asks excitedly, “I  _ grew up _ on the originals. Like, the drug use definitely flew over my head as a kid, but even then, it was amazing adventures.”

Derek is smiling in that blindingly beautiful way he does without a modicum of effort and asks, “is that why you’re going into criminal investigation?”

At first, Stiles is confused, because he’s positive he must have told Derek why he was majoring in Criminology at some point in their friendship, but Derek’s memory is iron-clad. If they had discussed it, Derek never would have forgotten it, so Stiles trusts that they’ve somehow managed to not yet touch the topic. He supposes they just never got into talking about their majors because in that moment, he realizes he never asked Derek why he was going into Engineering either, aside from the obvious fact that he’s remarkably good at it. 

“I… sort of? I’ve always been into crime and stuff, but, uhm… you know my dad is Sheriff in Beacon Hills - he always seemed so invincible that way, you know? When I was a kid, it was so impressive. Like that badge could get him into any  _ building _ , get him audience with any _ body _ \- it was a super power. It couldn’t protect my mom, though.”

Derek’s expression softens, remaining serious and attentive and Stiles clears his throat nervously, clenching and unclenching his hand on the tabletop. Derek’s attention is always intense, being the sole object of that attention is always heady, but seeing just how intently Derek is watching him, listening to him - it’s a little nerve-wracking. He hides his hands below the tabletop and lays them over his lap to keep them from giving away just how nervous he is.

“That badge couldn’t do anything when illness struck - my dad's a civil servant, not a superhero. I don't know what sorta insurance superheroes get, but I _do_ know what sorta insurance and pay civil servants get and they're not called _servants_ for nothing. We could hardly afford treatment for her, even the basic stuff - the co-pays were ridiculous and it was… I don’t know. It was so much worse than being robbed or assaulted - it was the longest goodbye I ever said, she faded so slowly and it was so  _ unjust _ . It was so  _ unfair _ . She didn’t deserve that - all that pain, that suffering, the loss of her dignity, her memory, her life… and there was nothing that badge could do…” 

Stiles trails off briefly, regaining focus and keeping his eyes directed away from Derek’s when he continues, “I was young and that was my excuse for being helpless, but my father - he’d, to my eyes, been invincible and then suddenly he was mortal. Totally, helplessly, painfully mortal. I was so angry at him for so long for that. I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just grab the best neurosurgeon of the world by the ear and tug them to my mother’s bedside and order them to make her better. It took me a long time to accept that there’s some injustices no one can battle. There’s no one to cuff, no one to shoot at, arrest, bring to court or lock up. There are people that are gonna hurt, suffer - good people, people who don’t deserve that. Terrible things to such good people and there’s just… there’s just… chaos.”

Scratching the back of his neck like a nervous tic, Stiles avoids the heavy weight of Derek’s gaze, still unsure of what it will make him feel and finishes, “it made me want to give up on everything for a while. What was the point of fighting for anything at all if there were fights you couldn’t win, no matter how hard you tried or how right you got everything? I could get every answer right and still fail - I could learn every move in the book and I'd still lose the battle. I was in a dark place for a long time, thinking that way. I eventually decided that life - it wasn’t about the fights we couldn’t win. It was about the ones that we  _ can _ win. Because, yeah, they're few and far between - it's rare that we get things right, totally right and that everything works out best for everyone that deserves it. Those fights are hard, the stakes are high and people might get hurt anyway, but occasionally those fights turn out for the best. And they’re worth fighting. So, I decided I’d make my dad proud. I’d get a badge of my own, maybe get some better insurance along the way, go about it differently than he did, but I’d… I’d do my part. There’s chaos all around, it’s apathetic and it’s cruel and I can’t stop that, but I can fight the mortals - the totally, helplessly and painfully mortal people that think they’re invincible, think they can inflict pain on others, make their own chaos without repercussion. That’s a fight I can win. And I want to. For my mom and for my dad. And maybe for some sense of control, you know? I like to think I leave things, people and places a little better than I found them and I wanna leave the world that way too. Just a little better than I found it.”

There’s a long silence that draws Stiles’ chin up until he’s looking into Derek’s eyes again. There’s such a magnitude there, such depth and earnestness, Stiles’ heart jumps and he has to look down again.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, “Not exactly first-date material.”

“Thank you.”

Stiles quirks a brow at Derek, shyly looking up at him and Derek doesn’t smile, but there’s a very approving glimmer in his eyes as he says, “that was a privilege to hear.”

“What about you?” Stiles redirects, blushing under Derek’s scrutiny, “Why did you choose Engineering?”

“I used to think God was an architect.”

The genuine surprise that brings Stiles allows him to meet Derek’s stare again. Derek makes appropriate amounts of eye-contact while he answers, not all too ashamed to share this part of himself. It makes Stiles think he’s hiding something.

“There’s such unlikely, improbable beauty, symmetry and genius in the engineering of biological life. When I believed in a God, I thought that He must be an engineer. The most incredible of any to have ever been known - having drafted and refined everything there ever was, from single-cell organisms to the neurons firing in Michelangelo’s brain while he painted the Sistine Chapel - what could I do but admire the Lord’s work? I was young, though. Even chaos has a visible, discernible pattern - taking on the look of butterfly’s wings given enough time. I construct, deconstruct, reconstruct and eventually, I might make something improbably beautiful. I don’t know that I can make the world any better, but I can make _something_ , maybe. I can build something that will make someone feel something, leave something behind that’s worth feeling something for.”

Honing in like a bloodhound, Stiles asks directly, “what made you stop believing in a God, then?”

Derek gives pause, seeming to struggle for the right words. He glances down into his Lemon Drop, drags his ring finger along the rim of the glass, then he looks back up to Stiles, a memory moving like a fog somewhere in those eyes that Stiles wants to know, but can’t ask for.

“Terrible things to such good people,” Derek answers eventually.

By just the tone of his voice, the slant of his shoulders, the tilt of his head, Stiles can tell that Derek isn’t saying terrible things happened to a good person like him. The implication is either that he’s witnessed chaos firsthand, found the universe unempathetic and so lost faith or the implication is that  _ he _ is the terrible thing that happened to some good person.

Based on what Stiles knows and understands about Derek, he banks on the latter.

“You should dance with me.”

Stiles cocks a brow, “ _ you _ dance?”

“I’m on the roof of The Waterfront on a beautiful night with a pretty good-looking date - so, yeah, tonight, I dance.”

With a cheeky grin, Stiles stands up alongside Derek and steps into the open space in front of the stage. When the lead singer starts a duet with the bass player, singing beautifully ‘ _ Ain’t No Mountain High Enough _ ,’ Derek leads them and Stiles lets him. Derek's not all that much taller than him - maybe an inch or so, but it's enough.

Being spun in and out of Derek’s arms, shamelessly moving across the otherwise empty dancefloor, not minding the eyes on them, Stiles thinks he’s off to a pretty good Goddamn start with this whole ‘dating the shit out of Derek Hale,’ thing. He thinks for a moment that he’d even like the night to never end. If he could feel like this forever - like time weren’t passing at all, like all there ever was, all there is at all, all there ever will be is Derek Hale, gorgeous starlight, good food, even better music, fireworks and cool moonlight, eternity would be a gift.

“Will you want dessert?”

Derek smirks, holding Stiles’ hand and waist-side, “is that an innuendo?” 

“Could be,” Stiles chuckles back, “but I actually didn’t have my head in the gutter. They have a macaron platter thing - I was hoping you’d partake.”

With a nod, Derek smiles and says, “I think I could be convinced.”

Stiles is only a little shorter than Derek, so he tucks his cheek against Derek’s, shutting his eyes, his lashes brushing against Derek’s cheekbone. They step in time and Derek makes it easy to follow - Stiles would follow Derek Hale into the mouth of Hell without prompting, though, so he might be biased. 

“Is dating you going to ruin my waistline?”

At that, Stiles throws his head back and laughs heartily - a contagious laugh that Derek catches just the way Stiles wanted him to. 

“I’d pay to see the day, Derek, I’d pay a pretty penny.”

When he picks his head back up, he’s nose-to-nose with Derek, maybe an inch or two apart. He  _ feels _ Derek smile and he’s close enough to lean in, to take Derek’s lips against his - it'd be so easy, but he doesn’t kiss Derek. 

He hasn’t been invited to, but it’s also this incandescently  _ perfect  _ moment - the faerie lights are flickering, the stars and moon are shining bright, the fireworks are popping, the singers’ rich voices are switching their tune to ‘ _ Come A Little Bit Closer _ ,’ - it’s a perfect moment and Stiles doesn’t want to ruin it. 

Not that kissing Derek would ruin it for  _ him _ \- there are few things in this universe that actually sound as appealingly  _ perfect _ as kissing Derek Hale under the sparkling of faerie lights, stars, fireworks and romantic melodies - no, that'd be about as perfect as perfect _gets_ as far as Stiles is concerned. No, he wouldn’t mind kissing Derek and it’s not for a shortage of courage either. He doesn’t want the moment ruined for  _ Derek _ .

He wants Derek and he doesn’t mean to lie about it or even try to make a secret about it, but he wants Derek to trust him and he wants Derek to know just how glad he is to have Derek’s company. Kissing him might imply he wants more than what he’s got in his arms right then and that would be a lie. He could die happy right then and there and he wants Derek to feel that, to trust it. He doesn’t need anything else.

It takes a moment for Stiles to realize the band has changed the pronouns of the song to sing directly to them - he looks up to the lead singer as he's spun past her; her wide waist is swinging and she’s smiling at him broadly, singing, “... _ so we started to dance, in my arms, he felt so inviting... that I just couldn't resist - just one little kiss so exciting... then I heard the guitar player say, ‘vamoose! José's on his way!’ Then I knew, yes, I knew I should run, but then I heard him say, yeah - _ ”

Stiles’ head snaps to Derek’s when he hears Derek singing along to the chorus, smiling that brilliant fucking smile right at him, “ _ come a little bit closer, you're my kind of man, so big and so strong! Come a little bit closer, I'm all alone and the night is so long… _ ”

The band’s cover is very R&B, so there’s a bridge of scatting that Derek spins him to and joining in, being lead around like a Disney princess, laughing openly and shamelessly has never been so easy - Derek makes everything so Good, so simple and Stiles supposes that’s what love  _ is _ .

His heart bumps violently, but beyond the fireworks and the band so closeby, Derek doesn’t seem to hear it. 

That’s fine.

Stiles thinks he should keep that revelation to himself for now.

He’s probably been in love with Derek for much longer than he’s realized, but of course, the realization has to come at this perfect moment that he can’t surrender. He can’t go hyperventilate in the bathroom, burst into tears against his pillowcase or hide around a corner to slide down the wall and hold his head, wondering how and why his heart would betray him this way - falling so head over fucking heels for the most emotionally unavailable man this side of the equator. 

All he can do is look into those kaleidoscope eyes and smile back because it's Good and simple and Derek Hale is Good - sometimes too Good for everything else shitty in the world. So, if Derek's smiling, Stiles is smiling, because that's how the universe absolutely should be. 

As it turns out, falling in love with Derek Hale feels a whole lot like floating.

So, he floats all night.

They stay til close, dancing, eating overpriced macarons, watching the fireworks and when they make it back to the frat house, Derek invites Stiles to his room. 

Stiles declines, to Derek’s apparent befuddlement.

"I thought... the whole 'restoring equilibrium to the universe,' thing had to do with -"

"I wasn't - that - that was poor phrasing on my part," Stiles excuses, gesticulating kind of vaguely, "I'm happy to just enjoy the night, Derek."

Derek looks sincerely confused and it sort of breaks Stiles' heart. 

“Tonight was _perfect_ ,” Stiles tells him reverently, “I wanna _crystalize_ it. You don’t owe me a thing - it’s been a privilege, Derek. So, if I can, I’d like to give you a kiss on your doorstep like an actual gentleman and get to bed at a reasonable hour so I can pretend to be thinking about something other than you during lecture tomorrow morning.”

It’s very clear that Derek’s never quite been asked a question like that - never asked for permission before touching. Before assuming. 

Derek nods once, slowly and murmurs, “yes. You can.”

So, Stiles first kisses Derek Hale on the doorstep to an old house on King’s River Avenue at around two in the morning on a Thursday in March. 

To say it's Good, simple, beautiful or perfect would be doing it an injustice.

He kisses Derek Hale, and he knows precisely why the arts have survived as long as they have. He knows now.


	3. Not So Bad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There's a brief description of tickling, but it is no way violent or unwelcome. Still, I know that can be triggery for a lot of people, so read carefully! There's also a lot of food mention in this chapter, there's explicit sex, gratuitous Lord of the Rings references (one of my on-going headcanons for these two dingbats is that they probably both love Tolkien to a fault and would be the only ones of the Pack to like the literature of LotR) and hints at Derek's (canon) past traumas. There's sort of unsafe sex? I mean... Derek's a werewolf that can't contract disease, so... I don't know if that counts? Slightly unsafe sex? Idk how to tag it - I think it should be fine, though.
> 
> If there's anything else at all that isn't tagged that should be, let me know in the comments! I think that covers any potentially upsetting topics, though. <3

A week after their first date, Derek agrees to their second. Stiles does not wear cologne because he knows it irritates Derek's sensitive nose and he does not bring flowers or chocolates, because he's not that sort of person. He _does_ , however, bring _Super Mario Kart_ and they spend about three hours on the living room couch of the frat house screaming profanities at each other at full volume. There's a romantic element to it, in its own way.

When Derek dares to insult the honor of the kindly and fair Princess Peach, Stiles retaliates by rudely sticking one of his bare feet onto Derek's face, throwing him off balance and off the course of the game for a minute. He sticks his toe in Derek's ear and wiggles his others by Derek's hairline to try and bother him, but instead of conquering Derek with the haughtiness of a middle-schooler's ill-won victory, he makes an ass of himself the moment Derek turns on him.

Derek turns his head just so, bites into the heel of Stiles' foot and then rubs his stubble across the sensitive arch, sending Stiles' limbs flailing and his controller flying through the air. Bizarrely, Stiles' body can't tell if it's turned on or if it's horribly offended. Either way, he screams and laughs hysterically and by the time their voices are sore and tired from shouting abuse at the television screen and at each other, they order pizza (the _good_ kind, from Via Roma, none of that 'order-online-tastes-like-plastic bullshit,' as Stiles so delicately puts it) and they lounge in Derek's room. 

Stiles drinks his weight in Dr. Pepper and walks around Derek's room with a curiosity and freedom he's not had before. Derek has never kept his room secret or anything, but Stiles never lingered too long, feeling like he was invading Derek's dearly beloved privacy.

There's a lot to be said for a person's room - a place where they nest. When life has stuck to a rhythm long enough, that's what people do - they nest, they collect things, they establish who they are and who they want to be. They don't just entertain their innermost dreams in their heads - they live under the roofs of their hopes and no one who has had the blessing of being invited into Derek Hale's bedroom has accounted for that, Stiles is sure. Stiles knows he has a deeper appreciation for these things than most people. That he thinks too much, makes everything into so much more than it is, but most of the time that works in his favor.

So, he's never taken the chance to loiter in Derek's room, even when he's had an opening, because it felt like an invasion of privacy. His inquisitive nature and sharp eyes pick everything apart and he can know a person inside and out by what they hide in their bedside table.

Now, though, he takes his time, running his fingers over the spines of books, examining some blueprints left open on Derek's desk, taking note of the way he folds his clothes with what looks like compulsive neatness. There's a hanging, full-length mirror on the wall, adjacent to the closet and there are a lot of polaroids of him and his family sticking from the corners - most of them are taken at the beach, all of them wearing sunglasses so their eyes don't leave a glare on the photos. They're cute. Stiles wonders where people even get polaroids printed anymore. He makes a mental note to ask Derek about it later.

He pictures Derek up here every month on the full moon, alone and maybe reading one of his too-many books or typing away at his laptop in the semi-dark. He wonders if Derek considers himself too much of a danger to be around on those nights and so chooses to be alone or if he's just gotten used to being made to spend those nights alone. Stiles makes another mental note to ask about joining Derek on his next full moon. Even if all he can do is sit around and be some silent company, it's probably better than being alone. He wonders if Derek stays alone on purpose, then - maybe he's hiding something; like, he doesn't want people to see his claws and/or fangs descend without him prompting them to. Maybe he thinks it's a weakness or something. 

As Stiles is touring the room, he asks about the minimalist poster Derek's got hanging on the wall near his bed - he doesn't understand it. He'd say it's something in Hebrew, but that doesn't seem right.

Derek scowls at him upon that remark and asks pretentiously, "what, you don't read Khuzdul?"

With a gasp of horror, Stiles twists around to face Derek.

"Don't fuck with me about Tolkien, alright?" Stiles starts accusingly, "The fuck does that say in Khuzdul?"

"I dunno," Derek starts with a pouty, holier-than-thou expression, "I think you should learn to read it and then get back to me."

" _Derek_ -"

"Alright, alright," Derek laughs, sitting up on his bed and staring at the poster in question, "It says, ' _there is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world_.’"

"How and _where_ did you find this poster?" Stiles asks reverently, touching at its corners.

"My sister made it," Derek answers (by which he means Laura, though he never says so - Stiles has caught on to Derek's trend of calling Laura 'sister,' and all his other siblings by their names - Stiles is fairly sure Derek doesn't mean anything by it, he's just closest to Laura of all of them), "She never got tired of bringing up how hard I cried at the end of _The Hobbit_ and it was sort of supposed to be a gag gift, but it wound up coming out really beautifully and I've kept it for years."

"Dude, I cry just _thinking_ about _The Hobbit_ ," Stiles sympathizes, staring at the perfect Khuzdul marks, "Like, Tolkien honestly fucked up my entire life. I'd sue for pain and suffering if he were alive to sue. _Lord of the Rings_ too - got me fucked up."

" _The Hobbit_ is clearly the superior story, Stiles. Come on."

Stiles side-eyes Derek, "I'm _sure_ I don't know what you mean. Frodo Baggins is our lord and savior and I won't tolerate any blaspheming."

"Bilbo Baggins is a _saint_ , Stiles. Frodo is more like a... hero. _The Hobbit_ is way more tragic, anyway."

Outraged, Stiles interrogates, " _what_ are you talking about? Frodo saves the _fucking world_."

"Yeah, but he couldn't have done _any of it_ without _Sam_ ," Derek counters, gesticulating broadly, "Frodo is a _hero_ , but he's not like an _Angel_ like Bilbo was. Bilbo is the first Hobbit to get into the Grey Havens because he's a fucking Archangel or _something_ \- something intense on the totem pole of spiritual power. He held onto the ring for most of his life and it took a toll on him, but by comparison? If we're being real? Frodo could barely _look_ at the ring without succumbing to its power and crumpling like stack of cards. Bilbo withstood the temptation of the ring as a young Hobbit, didn't allow it to corrupt him through his shit journey across the world, did basically _everything_ that needed doing _on his own_ \- don't give me that look - the company of dwarves hardly helped! Bilbo was constantly chasing after them and saving their dumb asses from whatever idiot situation their egos got them in and all while being a prime example of a gentlehobbit. All I'm saying is that if you were gonna pray to one of them for strength in a religion of Tolkien characters, between those two, who are you seriously gonna pick? Frodo or Bilbo?"

A pregnant, frustrated silence falls for a few beats and then;

"Fine," Stiles acquiesces, displeased, "Fair enough. Frodo is still pretty fuckin' bad ass, though."

"Not as bad ass as Samwise Gamgee," Derek argues, really just to be obstinate at this point, "Samwise didn't do enormously better in the ring department or anything, but he fucking carried Frodo up Mount Doom when Frodo was ready to _give up_ -"

Stiles throws his arms out in theatrical fury, "his body was _falling apart_ , dude!"

" _Sam_ was still put together!"

"He didn't have to _carry the ring_!"

"No, he just had to carry _Frodo's **entire** body **and** the ring_!"

"Oh my god, Derek, I don't think we're compatible."

The way Derek bursts into laughter in reply makes Stiles smile and he mutters, "as long as we're in agreement that Gimli and Legolas were in love, I think we can make it through this."

"Alright, yeah, but their love is nothing next to Bilbo and Thorin's."

Stiles opens his mouth to yell at Derek for instigating more fights, but he winds up asking with sincere intrigue, "you ship that?"

"Is that _not_ canon?"

It's Stiles' turn to laugh and with a stomach aching from shouting at being unjustly blue-shelled, cackling over the politics of fictional characters and stuffing his face with probably too much pizza, he approaches Derek's bed. He takes a seat on Derek's bed, stretching out to lie next to Derek and, in an attempt to woo Derek, recites to him, "home is behind, the world ahead, and there are many paths to tread. Through shadows to the edge of night, until the stars are all alight. Then world behind and home ahead, we'll wander back to home and bed. Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, away shall fade, away shall fade. Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, and then to bed, and then to bed."

He turns his head to look at Derek across the pillow and Derek's smiling at him softly, his eyes crinkled in an appealing way. His cheeks are rosy from laughing and he looks so handsome like that - he's at his most beautiful when he's happy. Stiles wonders idly if anyone else has ever made Derek look like that. So simply Happy. It occurs to him that he doesn't see that expression often on Derek, despite being familiar with it. He'd like it to be there more permanently, Stiles decides.

Derek keeps Stiles' stare when he replies in kind, "there, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

"Oh God, I'm so turned on right now."

Derek laughs heartily at that and when he calms down again, Stiles asks, "okay, if you had to choose to live in the Shire or -"

"The Shire."

"I haven't even said the other -"

"Whatever it is, I'm choosing the Shire."

Stiles chuckles at Derek's cocky, amused smile and asks, "so you like good weather? Warm weather?"

"I like Spring time," Derek specifies, "I like gardens, good food, sunshine and I like storms. It's the perfect time of year for me and The Shire is in a sort of permanent state of Spring."

"I have an app that just continuously plays a thunder and lightning storm," Stiles mentions casually, "I use it when I'm freaked out over finals and can't sleep. It calms me down."

"I _love_ thunderstorms," Derek breathes out.

"What about them?" Stiles interviews curiously.

"The sound."

"Really? I thought with your heightened senses, you'd hate the thunder."

"Really," Derek starts, looking wistfully away, recalling some fond memory, "My mother used to take me out to the backyard when I was young, every time we'd have a thunderstorm. We'd look over her garden, watch the sky turn dark and listen to the thunder, watch the lightning. We didn't talk a lot and I don't know why she chose me out of everyone to take, but I think maybe she just innately knew? That I liked storms the way she did? I really cherish those memories with her. Every time it rains, I think of her. It makes me feel small again, in a good way. The way you were small and knew everyone around you was there to take care of you and you didn't know the world was shitty yet? That feeling. Of just being small, quiet and content."

Something warm and comfortable settles gently in the center of Stiles' chest and he smiles at Derek's profile, watching him get lost in memories.

"I like electric guitars too. The same indescribable way I like thunderstorms - and I know you're thinking that most Were's don't like loud noises like that, but I really do. Boyd told me I like electric guitars because I'm white and I'm genetically predisposed to like them," Derek laughs, smiling at this ceiling, "When I was really young, I'd skip all the lyrical parts of _Free Bird_ just to get to the guitar solo. And you know that fizzing sound that happens when you crack open a can of soda? I like that too, but only with the cans. The fizzing is less satisfying when the bottle is glass or plastic for some reason. And - I haven't had them in a long time, but I also used to love popping off the Snapple bottle caps. The pop and sigh was so weirdly satisfying. I'd get so excited about it, even if it wasn't a flavor I liked. Cora went through a Snapple phase where it was all she'd drink and I insisted she let me open every bottle - she did, even if she was confused by it. I didn't usually... what?"

Derek finally notices Stiles staring at him and turns his head to look into Stiles' eyes again. Their eyes catch and Stiles means to answer Derek, he really does, he just... can't. 

Eyes twinkling, Derek gazes curiously at Stiles and asks again, "what? What is it?"

Honesty has worked well for Stiles thus far, so he throws in a penny and then a pound.

"I'm... just worried, I think."

"Worried about what?"

The genuine concern in Derek's voice is so endearing, Stiles' throat clicks nervously on a swallow. 

"I'm worried I'm going to fall in love with you."

It's a half-truth. Stiles knows he's already in deep, but he doesn't want to scare Derek away. This admission is close enough to the truth, Stiles supposes.

That confession definitely throws Derek for a second - he doesn't look like he wants to jump out the window to get away, so there's that at least. He keeps staring, though, unafraid to meet Stiles' eyes and assess him. It seems to take forever, but Derek puts words together and they're quiet, tender and intimate. And honest.

"I... I mean, I hope... I think that... falling in love with me probably isn't so bad? I wouldn't say it's advisable, but if you do... I... I don't think you have to worry. I don't think it'd be... catastrophic or anything."

That's a better response than Stiles had ever hoped for. It's sweet, it's wary and it's painfully self-aware. It only serves to make Stiles like him more. He doesn't say that, though - he really doesn't like the idea of Derek leaping from a window to escape emotional confrontation. Which seems likelier the more Stiles considers how much he'd like to voice his affections.

"Have you been in love before?" Stiles asks.

"Yes," Derek answers readily.

Stiles' heart nearly stops.

How could he never tell? Why would Derek have never mentioned being in love? They've had so many important conversations and they're so close - how could Derek have kept this a secret for so long? Stiles wonders quickly if that's what burned Derek - if he's a still-broken heart trying to heal from someone's mistreatment of it. That would explain a lot.

"Did they love you back?"

"I think she did, yeah," Derek answers, eye-contact waning, "Not advisable, even then. But I think I've... gotten better with time? Wiser? Safer? I don't know."

Better. Wiser. Safer. Very specific and, frankly, strange words to choose. Stiles takes note of that; word choice is always significant and when it comes to Derek Eyebrow-Is-My-Mother-Tongue Hale, word choice is even more significant. 

Just as Stiles is about to continue his interrogation, Derek's hand falls on his, drawing his attention up. He can tell in an instant that Derek's hiding something - maybe more than one thing. His eyes are clear and he's present, but visible guards are up. He's trespassed somehow onto some private thought, private feeling, private memory, private property of Derek's spirit and Stiles, being who he is, would dare to trespass further if he finds a way to. The Empath in him is feeling frustratedly limbless, so close to a precipice, so near understanding something deeper and bigger than himself, but having no clue where it is he stands, if he's standing on anything at all.

"Not that I don't appreciate you being such a, uh... gentlehobbit -"

"Pardon yourself," Stiles jokes, smirking, "but according to several online tests, I would be born into the race of Men, thank you very much."

"Fine," Derek smiles, "My apologies. Not that I don't appreciate you being such a gentle _man_ , but, if I can be indelicate for a second here?"

"I invite you to be!" Stiles grins.

"You've had me ready for over a week here and I'm sort of wondering when you'll stop being a gentleman and start fucking me."

Simmering heat pools low in Stiles' abdomen and his jeans are definitely too confining. Why does he insist on skinny jeans? Why does he keep buying skinny jeans? He should stop wearing skinny jeans. He should stop wearing pants, actually. That'd be a great development. Much easier for situations like these. Which he desperately hopes to find himself in more often.

"Well, Derek," Stiles murmurs, a mischievous tone to his voice as he slides over Derek to straddle him, "I really don't see why I can't be a gentleman _and_ fuck you."

The pinkish tone Derek's ears take in response to that is totally worth how cheesy Stiles just felt for saying it. 

"What should I veer away from and what do you like? Will you tell me truthfully if I should stop?"

Derek's expression takes on that same look as it did the night Stiles asked to kiss him - sincere surprise, confusion and insecurity. It's as troubling as it is disarming.

"I, uhm... no choking," Derek mutters, looking up at Stiles, "No insults either. I guess just ask me, if you wanna do anything? I prefer you take control, though."

Stiles remembers what Isaac had said; that Boyd described Derek as someone who 'tops from the bottom,' and he wonders if maybe Boyd didn't know how to take control from Derek. Maybe he relied on matching Derek's physical strength (which - good luck) and that was his downfall. If Derek wants to be submissive, Stiles has profiled him enough to know it will take _words_ to get Derek to submit - no pushing or shoving required. Stiles' mother once told him, 'fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice - fortune depends on the tone of your voice.' Words to live by. He knows he can dominate Derek if it's what Derek wants - he just needs to find the right words. And he knew insults wouldn't work before Derek said a word about it - he actually feels secondhand embarrassment for whoever tried that tactic and failed. 

"You can be rough, if you want to," Derek continues, but he's interrupted there.

"I don't want to be rough with you, Derek," Stiles tells him honestly, "I wanna be good to you."

That, more than anything Stiles has ever said (including the time when he admitted he eats pineapple on his pizza), seems to shock and alarm Derek the most. 

If Stiles didn't know something was Wrong before, he knows now for sure.

Stiles opens his mouth to ask something - ask after Derek and why it is he wants someone to take control from him, why it is that he didn't say, 'I'd like for you to be rough with me,' but rather, 'you can be rough with me, if you want to,' as if he were a doll to be passed around. He wants to ask Derek if Derek is seriously okay with this, if it's what he really wants or if he's pulling Stiles into his bed out of some compulsive need, but before he can ask any of that, Derek's arms are looping around his neck and dragging him down into a searing kiss. 

Stiles is a good guy - he likes to thinks so, anyway - but, as Tolkien wrote, the hearts of men are easily corrupted and he is _weak_ the moment Derek kisses him. When Derek is kissing him, licking into his mouth, sucking gently on his lower lip, he stops thinking about what he _should_ do and all the overheated blood in his body starts flooding south, leaving his brain light as cotton and just about as empty. He starts thinking only about what he _wants_ to do and _God_ , _yes_ , he wants to fuck Derek Hale more than is psychologically sound or healthy. 

Getting Derek out of his clothes is simple and even getting out of his own is simple too - what's not simple is the electricity that flows back and forth between them the moment skin touches skin. Stiles audibly gasps at first contact, his eyes flutter shut and his entire body tenses up, wanting to do everything and nothing all at once. He wants to kiss Derek, he wants Derek to mark up his neck, he wants to pull at Derek's hair, he wants Derek to suck him down to the root, he wants to run his hands over every perfect fucking inch of Derek's body, he wants to bury himself in Derek, he wants to get lost in Derek and stay lost, he wants to connect to Derek in some way no one ever has before and in a way no one else ever can or will. He wants Derek, he wants Derek in a decidedly Not Simple way, he wants Derek in every way Derek Hale can be had, he wants everything and nothing too - because his skin touching Derek's is so insanely perfect, he doesn't want that to stop either and he could die happy just having Derek that close to him.

There's some nearly-embarrassing grinding that Stiles can't keep himself from before Derek gasps pleasantly, pulls away from a torrid kiss and tells Stiles there's lube in the second drawer of his bedside table. Derek Hale all Gathered and Put Together is nice to look at, but Derek Hale all Hot and Bothered? Phenomenal. Ten out of ten, five stars, would recommend. When Stiles goes to reach for it, he's stretched out over Derek and he asks about condoms and then falls on his elbows with a moan because Derek chooses that very second to suck one of Stiles' nipples into his kiss-swollen mouth. 

Stiles' cock twitches against Derek's stomach and just as his upper arms start to shake, Derek _bites_ him, eliciting a loud (but _shockingly_ pleased) groan. His heartbeat is a fast paced drum set in between his ears, but he's still able to hear Derek murmur roughly against his chest, "no condoms. Not for you. I can't get sick - you know I can't and I don't have anything to pass on to you. I want you. I want you bare."

" _Oh_ , _God_ ," Stiles' voice cracks.

There's a bottle with a pump in the second drawer and Stiles goes for it. He does notice condoms in there - which means Derek definitely uses them... just... not for _him_. Maybe it's sort of sick or wrong to be pleased by that, but there's something so _intoxicating_ about being set apart from the rest - that Derek honestly _does_ want him in some way he doesn't usually want other people. 

Stiles is about to make a comment on it, about to spill his guts, probably, but then, without prompting, Derek lies prone for him. 

Stiles isn't opposed - not by a long shot, it's just... 

There's something not entirely Right about it. 

He allows himself a long look over Derek, feeling at his calves and thighs, marveling at how they're more like titanium than flesh. He gets handfuls of Derek's cheeks, squeezing and wondering if eating Derek out at any point might be on the table. He resolves to ask at another time. He dips his thumbs into the indents at the small of Derek's back, he splays his hands over Derek's (always impressive) lats and inwardly, he thinks Derek might be proud of him if he were to show off that he knows that muscle group is Latissimus Dorsi. He'll peacock some other time, though. He knows Derek likes it when he shows off that 'big brain,' of his - Derek might make fun of him for it in front of other people, but Stiles knows intellect _works_ for Derek. And there is nothing on this Earth Stiles wants more than to work for Derek. On several levels.

He moves his palm over the tattoo on Derek's back - he has seen it before, but never so up-close. He and Derek have shared enough about themselves that he knows the triskele is Derek's family's symbol, that it's got to do with heritage and Pack and complicated Were rituals and that it was very painfully acquired. It suits Derek, though. Stiles has said as much in the past, but especially now - especially now that Stiles can see the birthmarks, the freckles, the cafe au lait spots, the beauty marks all gracing Derek's legs and torso, it seems even more beautiful. He presses one open hand against Derek's left shoulder blade, pushing Derek into the mattress and he allows his right hand to massage over Derek's neck and comb into his hair. 

He leans in close and asks in a hoarse whisper, "hair-pulling okay?"

"More than," Derek responds, sounding just as ruined.

When Stiles gives it a decent tug, Derek moans sinfully, his back arches, his head is thrown back, his neck on display and knowing Derek, knowing how Were's operate, knowing what he's been asked to do, Stiles takes the opportunity to dominate.

When he bites into the space between Derek's neck and shoulder, he correctly predicts the following seethe, but he never imagined Derek _growling_.

He also never imagined it _working_ for him.

He wonders what in the world Derek's done to his psychosexual responses that animalistic growling makes him hard enough to cut diamond.

"Good?" Stiles asks sincerely, licking up Derek's neck to the shell of his ear.

" _Fuck_ , yes, Stiles."

Stiles' cock twitches again and he really wishes he had prepared some way to record that so he could listen to it on a loop for all eternity. All he can prepare right then, though, is _Derek_ and he's more than happy to start.

Stiles is partway through stretching Derek on his fingers when it occurs to him that Derek has made himself quite comfortable on his belly. There's no indication that Derek wants to turn around or expects to be turned around. That 'Something Not Quite Right,' feeling hits Stiles again and he becomes rather determined to watch Derek orgasm. He's starting to get a clearer picture now - if Derek is like this with all his partners, the ladies he's brought to his room probably rode him (and why wouldn't they? Stiles wants to ride Derek too, damn) - but they probably didn't see anything strange in his behaviors, probably just thought he was shy or something. He probably pulled them down and forward to hide his expression when he came and maybe an unobservant partner would think of it as intimacy or a show of affection, mistake it for cuddling. Stiles can sense the secrecy still living in the room, though.

If Derek is so confident that he won't be turned around, odds are, it's because no one's asked him to. 

So, of course, Stiles intends to.

Once Derek is sweating and panting and adjusting around Stiles' three fingers, muttering against his pillow that he's ready, he's ready, he's ready, Stiles pulls his fingers away gently, lathers the same hand with more of the messy, water-based whatever the Hell perfect brand of lube Derek owns and tells him to turn over.

"...what?"

"I want you to turn over."

"Why?"

"Derek," Stiles starts quietly, riding his theatrical role quickly into what could be his grave, "you've been so good for me. You've given me so much, but I want more. I want to watch you come, Derek. I want to watch you come, split open on me, wanting me. Will you do that for me, Derek?"

Stiles has never engaged in role-playing and he's certainly never been asked to be the Master to anyone's slave, but this lighter version they're playing at, he can handle. He even feels like he's good at it. It's not exactly dirty-talk and it's not scary or demanding. It's teasing, though and Derek knows he can stop everything if he wants it to end - he knows he can say, 'no,' and that Stiles will respect it. They've been friends for too long for Derek not to know.

The hesitation Derek shows in turning over speaks volumes and it's another mystery Stiles is intent on unwinding. He smiles at Derek's blushing face, gazes into his glassy, foggy eyes and tells him sweetly, "thank you, Derek. You look gorgeous like that, on your back for me. I think seeing you fall apart will be the real treat, though."

Derek's eyes flutter shut and there's nervousness emanating off him, but there's a lot of Good coming off him in waves as well. He's enjoying it - Stiles can always tell these things and it's no different now. Derek likes what he says and how he says it, he's nervous (though Stiles can't imagine why), but excited - so, not Simple in the way he usually is, but Good. Good, Good, Good, Good, Good. So much _More_ than Good. All of it. 

Two pillows prop up Derek's waist to put him at an angle best suited for what Stiles is (desperately) trying to accomplish. Stiles keeps his hands on Derek's parted thighs and hips, he kisses Derek's chest and abs, digs his fingers into the flesh of Derek's inner-thighs and when Derek's eyes are rolled back and shut on a pleasured high, Stiles comfortably slides into him. Derek's chest trembles with a low growl, his brow furrows in this incredibly endearing way, his claws poke out against his mattress and Stiles falls ever deeper.

Derek's dark hair is all fanned out against the bed sheets, his face is flustered and they've got matching sheens of sweat that are somehow not gross at all, but insanely hot. Stiles hopes Derek's nose isn't too offended by it all - if Derek's expression is anything to go by, his other senses are too distracted with other sensory input for his nose to be bothered by anything at all. He looks blissful and hypnotized, just a touch limp too - his muscles aren't tight with anxiety or tension anymore, he's just relaxed, control whole-heartedly handed over to Stiles. 

Starting slow, Stiles pulls out just slightly and moves back in, cursing softly because Derek is tighter than a vice, hotter than Hell, smoother than silk and _groaning his name_. Stiles almost wishes Derek had made him wear a condom - he'd at least have had a chance at lasting a minute longer. 

He keeps the pace slow for a good few minutes, despite Derek very clearly adjusting to his girth quickly - the slow pace is more for the sake of what's left his sanity and dignity than anything else. Whatever gentleman he may have been an hour or so earlier is dead and gone. 

Derek's hands curling into the sheets, claws out and palms pulling at the blankets for some degree of control is heady, but it also gives Stiles a feel for how frustrated and, potentially, how close Derek is. He hears Derek moan his name wantonly, like a deep, rumbling plea and he has no way of denying Derek anything. So, he speeds up. He finds a pace and depth just below punishing - something he can keep up with and maintain even as his body begs him to move however it can to make him come as quickly as possible. He tilts Derek's hips just a little more and Derek lets out a loud cross of a growl and moan that gives Stiles the most pleasant chills his body has ever experienced. 

He decides to keep at that, then.

Being _in_ Derek, being _a part_ of him - it's too much. He's head over fuckin' heels and he feels it and it must be showing, it must be coming off him in tidal waves and he's closer than he meant to be and he _needs to warn Derek_ , so he does. He doesn't stop moving for a second, but he admits lowly, "Derek - I'm - I'm really, really close. What do you - you want? How do you wanna come?"

The crown of Derek's head pushes into the mattress, his back arching more, his cock dripping precum, nipples pebbled against the cool air in the room and he looks fucking beautiful. 

" ** _Stiles_** ," Derek groans and it's a roll of thunder.

It occurs to Stiles at the sound of his name in that tone, that octave, that desperate noise that passes for Derek's voice now that Derek has entirely lost control of himself. It's beautiful. It's so beyond flattering and honoring to see Derek in the throes of passion like this, in a way he is fairly sure no one has ever seen him before.

Stiles shivers again, feels another wave of tingling heat move down his body in warning and he asks if Derek wants him to take him in hand. Derek shakes his head, though, his eyes still unopened, his hair still sticking in every direction, his face still dark and flustered, his kiss-darkened lips part and he confesses, "I'm close - gonna come - you don't need to touch. It's good - it's good - it's so good, Stiles..."

" _Jesus **fucking** Christ_ ," Stiles moans tragically, dropping his chin to his chest.

He speeds up, starts thrusting more deeply and he watches the muscles in Derek's abdomen undulate, watches how Derek's legs twitch, how his heart visibly pounds against his chest, how his Adam's apple moves smoothly up and down and then Derek's thick brows are pulling in, he's gritting his teeth - _fangs_ \- _his fangs are showing, Jesus Christ_ \- and with a strain, his body tightens impossibly around Stiles and his cock pulsates; he's striping his own chest, he's coming _loudly_ and entirely untouched and Stiles is gone in an instant. He fucks Derek through his own orgasm, unwilling to pause if it might lessen the intensity of Derek's orgasm and when he's coming down from the high, when the ringing in his ears isn't too deafening anymore and his vision is back from having whited out, he looks down at Derek and...

And he knows what's wrong.

He finally knows what's Wrong.

Derek's fangs are still showing, his claws are still out, his eyes are lidded, but they're...

"Blue?" Stiles whispers.

"What?" Derek asks on a sigh, still coming down from the high.

His eyes are blue. 

Derek's eyes are _blue_.

It all comes together in Stiles' mind more quickly than he can censor, organize, translate or even properly compartmentalize. 

_His eyes are **blue**. He says falling in love with him is ill-advised. He doesn't let anyone stay with him more than once. He doesn't like people seeing him when he comes. He doesn't like **actually** losing control - unless he trusts someone and he doesn't trust anyone. He doesn't trust anyone except **me** for some reason and his **eyes are blue**. **His eyes are blue**. Something bad happened. Something **Bad** happened - Derek said so himself. Such terrible things to such good people. Derek doesn't believe in a God, but he once did. Derek likes routine, Derek distracts himself from reality by fixing up cars and burying himself in school work - even other's people's school work if his isn't enough. He's running from something. He's keeping secrets. He stays alone in his room on full moon nights and this is why. This is why. Because if anyone saw him on full moon nights, they'd know._

They would know his eyes are blue and they'd know what that means.

Same as Stiles does.

It takes a few beats for Derek to come back down to Earth, but when he does, it's apparent that he immediately senses Stiles' unease and the atmosphere changes like night and day. What was once easy, Simple and Good - now it's dark, it's heavy, it's Complicated and Bad and frightening and Stiles is lost at sea. Wide-eyed, he stares down at Derek, watches how Derek's expression closes off like shutters on a window, sees all those guards get thrown back up and for the first time in his life, Stiles wonders if... he was wrong. If he was _Wrong_ about Derek Hale - if he was somehow misinterpreting something else for Goodness, but he doesn't think that's possible... 

He's never been wrong. Never.

Gently, he pulls out and away from Derek, heart pounding, stomach turned over, hands shaking. 

Could he have been wrong? He's never been wrong before...

But Derek's eyes are _blue_...

And they're watery now.

"You're scared."

Stiles is paralyzed and says nothing.

Thunder crashes like cymbals outside - it wasn't supposed to rain til the next day, but it seemed they were in for some surprises that night. When the thunder booms, Stiles jumps in fright and it gives him away. He must be giving all of himself away - he's naked in more ways than one and Derek retracts his claws, but can't seem to retract his fangs or dull the luminescent glow of his eyes.

"Go, Stiles."

"... but, I -"

" ** _Go_**."

Stiles would like to say he didn't run out of that house in fear of Derek. He'd like to say that, but if he did, he'd be lying. 


	4. High Stakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There is mention of abuse, mention of murder, mention of the sexual abuse of a minor and mentions of past Kate/Derek. Not legal or consensual by any stretch of the imagination, but it /is/ mentioned. I don't remember Kate's canonical age, so I may have aged her up quite a bit for this chapter's mention of her. If I should put a trigger warning for anything else in this chapter, tell me in the comments! <3 Read safely! <3

Right after he’s already rung the doorbell, Stiles thinks the flowers might be a bit much.

But maybe not?

Maybe, though.

… but maybe not? Probably not. Probably not, right? People like flowers, right? Flowers aren’t like, ill-received, generally. People aren’t usually like ‘how about you fuck off with your flowers, bud,’ – but Stiles is also bad at like… People. So.

Socializing and People is something Stiles has never really been known for doing (conventionally) well, but now Stiles is figuring he’s also bad at Flowers. Or at least bad at telling when flowers are _appropriate_.

Like, funerals and memorial services and stuff, definitely and sometimes romantic dates – which is a really weird thing, actually, that those two very unrelated things involve and even expect flowers, but that’s sort of the extent of Stiles’ flower-related knowledge.

Flowers are the least of his problems.

He sighs in frustration.

He really wishes his brain would slow down and stop derailing all the time. He doesn’t mean for it to do the stuff it does, it’s just always changing lanes. His brain is capable of holding up to about fifty anxieties at once and he’s at full capacity right now, so the lane-changing is happening at like two-hundred miles an hour and also not using its blinkers. At night. In the rain. During an Earthquake. On fire.

He takes a deep breath and tries to refocus on the flowers. They’re pretty – they’ll probably go over fine.

Probably.

Whatever.

They’re not for Derek, anyway, though.

Well – they sort of are. They’re meant to be _seen_ by Derek, but not gifted to him.

Ten at night on a Saturday isn’t exactly an odd hour to show up on a friend’s patio, but Stiles isn’t exactly at a friend’s patio and he’s not exactly there for a normal reason and he’s there with flowers which is a sort of People-Social-Thing that he’s apparently Bad at. Upon review, Stiles decides that everything about his life is just… strange. Like, very strange.

He wonders if everyone’s life is like this – standing on patios with flowers that might be a Bad Idea and itching to use their heart-monitor app just to confirm how high their BPM is when they know it won’t do any good anyway because they already know it’s too high and all that happening with that one fucking verse from Phantom Planet’s ‘ _All Over Again_ ,’ playing over and over through the speakers of their brain-car while it recklessly switches lanes in the rain at night during an Earthquake on fire.

Something tells him he’s a unique case.

The Hales’ house is enormous, fit for the larger-than-life Pack Derek has always described them to be and the house is surrounded by tall trees, cushioned by gardens and they’ve got a dirt-driveway with five cars parked in no discernable pattern. There’s an orange Charger that Stiles recalls Derek describing as ‘gaudy,’ and, if he recalls the story properly, that one belongs to his brother.

There are no houses nearby, which Stiles supposes makes sense. He’s never actually visited the Hales, but he knows that whatever money the Hales come from, it’s enough to afford a pretty decent length of property. To Stiles, when he rings that doorbell, it feels a lot like using the door-knocker at the castle from _Beauty & the Beast –_ everything around him is beautiful, but also worn and isolated and a little creepy. Not exactly frightening, but mystical and with an atmosphere that Stiles can’t imagine is artificial or could even be recreated with the best efforts.

There are moths fluttering around the dimmed lights on the ceiling of the patio’s cover, fireflies are floating around, lazily wafting by his ears and he’s rocking back and forth on his heels, his worn out converse making the patio creak from under the doormat. The fact that the full moon’s light strikes the front door like a concentrated, blanketing beam hasn’t escaped his notice; it’s like being under a spotlight and it feels very, very intentional.

When the door opens, to his gladness and dismay, Stiles sees precisely who he meant to see.

He’s just never seen her before and so, he’s taken aback by how beautiful she is. He can see the resemblance between her and Derek – it makes sense, how beautiful they both are, it’s still intimidating, though.

“Mrs. Hale,” Stiles greets, both hands nervously coming to grip the stems of his flowers.

Her eyes drift from his face, down his torso, noting his shoes and probably the torn up hem of his jeans, then she stares at the flowers for a bit.

“Ghost orchids,” she says, “Derek likes those. They’re rare. How did you mange to get them?”

When she finally meets Stiles’ eyes again, Stiles visibly and audibly swallows in anxiety. He thinks the actual process of obtaining the flower order would bore her – he is also pretty sure that she’s not really asking that literal question.

So, he answers the question he _thinks_ she’s asking, “I’d manage anything for him.”

It would seem, that is the correct answer.

“Call me Talia,” she instructs, stepping aside in a welcoming gesture, “Come on inside – let’s put those in some water.”

He cautiously steps inside, his eyes roving around, collecting information for later meditation. The first thing he notices – the thing impossible to _not_ notice is the sheer volume of books lying about.

There are books everywhere – on tabletops, shelves, cases, stacked on bits of the stairs and all around the living room’s entertainment center. Even with a quick glance, Stiles can see they’re so varying in topics that it can’t be one person’s collection – it’s a little endearing, imagining the Hales pooling their books together to make a library of personality.

It’s easy to see what parts of Derek’s personality where shaped by what – there’s books on Philosophy, Psychology, Modern Art, Post-Modern Art, Poetry and even Plays. There are books on Sciences from Pseudo-Sciences like Telepathy and Telekinetic Abilities to Aero-space Engineering, books on Linguistics, Religion and books among those that are manga series or comic books.

There are Shakespearean collections, collective works of Edgar Allen Poe, books up there by Jane Austen, Daphne du Maurier, Maya Angelou, Virginia Woolf just the same as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut. He sees a copy of _Grey’s Anatomy_ , _The Adventures of Robin Hood_ , _The Thief Lord_ , _Secrets_ , _Cosmos_ , _Falling Up_ , the full collections of the _Harry Potter_ series, the _Lord of the Rings_ series – accompanying novels accounted for as well up there.

There are books like _Everything That Might Kill You_ , _How to Survive Worst-Case Scenarios_ , _I’m America and So Can You_ , _Pot Culture_ , _Build That Bong_ and there has to be at least five books by Lee Child, squished against possibly every published work of Stephen King – and beside that, a collection of H.P Lovecraft’s works.

Even pressed, Stiles would never be able to tell which books were solely Derek’s in the beginning – it feels like everything there informs who Derek is and how he acts and how he thinks. He may have read every book Stiles’ eyes pass over, for that matter. It’s like his name is plastered over every spine of every book there.

There’s a staircase to the second floor by the front door – the steps are hardwood like the rest of the house’s flooring. Everything looks shiny, polished and well-kempt. There are some paintings that hang on the walls, some photos too – the same types of polaroid’s that Derek keeps, except they’re blown up, take up much more space and they’re framed neatly. There are a lot of baby-photos with shut eyes, but they’re sweet to look at and if Stiles didn’t know they were a Pack of Were’s, he may have had suspicions, but it’s all so benign, he thinks someone less keen wouldn’t know those photos are all so intentionally and carefully posed.

There are a lot of scented candles throughout the house, rugs with Celtic runes and designs in the living room and dining room. There’s a record player in the kitchen, sitting on a bookcase that’s being used to house records – the sleeves of which are frayed, yellowed and torn here and there. He can picture the way the music must flow through the house, how the acoustics might work in a room like that and he can see the Hale family preparing meals together or cleaning up and music playing – maybe they all sing together or dance around one another to reach cupboards and drawers. Maybe they get distracted entirely from their chores and just enjoy being a family.

To get to the kitchen, Talia leads him through the dining room, a room full of warm, kinetic energy, full of laughter and good cheer. It feels good just to walk through it and Stiles is reminded of Derek’s innate Goodness. He used to wonder if that Goodness was bred into him or Derek was born with it – Stiles used to lean more towards it being something Derek was born with, but walking through the empty dining room, feeling the spirit of the Hales so encompassed even in silence, makes him question whether or not Derek was raised with such a tender hand that he was as purposefully Good and beautiful as the flowers gardened out front.

“They’re not here,” Stiles mentions conversationally as they step into the kitchen.

He can see from Talia’s partially hidden profile how she smiles when she replies, “you say that like you didn’t know that already.”

Looking down at his feet, Stiles idly worries that he’s tracked dirt into the house and he also wonders how he thought he’d get away with half-lying to an Alpha Werewolf.

When she turns to take the flowers from him, she smiles kindly and tells him, “you don’t need to panic. I know who you are and I know why you’re here. There are no lines to toe around here – time has never worked our side, we don’t waste time on idle talk in this house. You can ask me what you want to ask me – I’ll answer you or I won’t and from what I understand, you’re an inquisitive, sharp mind. I’m sure you’ll do fine in figuring out whether or not you should push a subject.”

Nodding, Stiles follows Talia’s lead back into the dining room and sits across from her at the table. She places the ghost orchids close enough to the end of the table that they could be seen from outside one of the many windows if one were to peer inside, then she folds her hands and arms over the table and leans in, her black hair slipping from her shoulder.

“Well? Where would you like to start?”

Having had A.D.H.D his entire life, Stiles is pretty used to how his brain will spring a thousand things at him at once. His frontal lobe is like a bored, indecisive viewer channel-surfing at all hours. As soon as she asks that, about forty questions come to mind all rapid-fire in succession. He once told Scott that having a brain like his is like walking into a surprise party and confetti falls, but there are words on all the confetti papers and all of them seem like _important_ words and it’s like trying to read them all at once while they continuously fall all around like a rainfall.

It’s exhausting and impossible, but his brain just does not quit.

Surprisingly, even to Stiles, this time – even though there are so many questions banging at the back of his teeth, trying to break out, he knows what he wants to ask first.

“Is he okay?”

Talia tilts her head in consideration, “… relatively speaking. Yes.”

That’s not really the answer Stiles wanted – he was hoping that ‘yes,’ would have come more readily and without comparatives, but he supposes he should have known better. Last he saw Derek, things didn’t exactly… go well.

“I… am I supposed to know?”

“Which part?”

“About his eyes.”

Talia pauses, sighs and answers, “no. You’re not supposed to know. No one is.”

“No one? Or no outsider?”

“No outsider.”

“So, the family knows?” Stiles clarifies.

“Yes, our family knows,” she says steadily.

“Did he… I…”

Her attention is undivided and she’s honest – she seems as forthright and steadfast as Derek is, so he is not hesitating because he is unsure she will answer his questions. The fact that she is an Alpha shouldn’t influence her personality all that much – people are people and some people have strong personalities and others have subdued ones, but he can sense how she commands attention. She exudes power like a honing beacon, she feels as certain and dangerous as the ocean – beautiful and worthy of respect for just how she holds herself, but deadly and not to be underestimated.

He might be the one asking questions, but there is no doubt between the two of them about who is in control of the conversation.

She’s not shocked he’s asking after something so highly personal and clearly an implication of something incredibly illegal and nefarious and how sturdy she is, how sure she is in what she is, who she is, who Derek is, what her family is and isn’t – that confidence carries in the air. While that certainty and self-assuredness is impressive and Stiles wishes he were even a modicum as self-assured as Talia Hale seems to be, he’s not intimidated by it.

He’s not hesitating because he’s scared of anything. He’s just not totally sure where to begin.

“If I ask you… to take me to the beginning – to tell me what happened, _all_ that happened – will you? Or am I not meant to know that either?”

She seems to appreciate his tact – her smile is polite and a little remorseful when she tells him, “I’ll tell you whatever will keep my son safest. Some parts of that story are only for him to tell, though. I wouldn’t mean to lie to you by omission, but for the sake of his privacy and his safety, I may censor some of it.”

Thinking that she’s being fair – remarkably fair, even – in giving him that much, Stiles nods and asks as if rehearsed, “alright. Will you, please, then, tell me what happened to Derek?”

He worded that specifically for the reaction he gets – it’s an interrogation trick. Indicating that whatever Bad thing happened must have happened to Derek rather than some other unknown victim endears him to her (or, according to the trick, it ought to). In interrogations, it’s useful to get chummy with criminals, to let them believe the interrogator is on their ‘side,’ and while that’s not totally untrue in this case, he needs to take advantage of every tool he knows to use.

It has the desired effect – Talia’s eyes soften and the lines around her brow and mouth change imperceptibly but in a way that speaks to fatigue and a lowering of inhibitions. All micro-expressions, but all of which Stiles knows how to read and read well.

She believes him that he only wants the truth and doesn’t want to put Derek in danger, same as her – he can tell. He’s not great at People or Socializing, but he is not ashamed to admit he’s good at manipulation. Having an advanced set of social skills isn’t the same as knowing how people _work_ and knowing how people _work_ is the key to getting to what one _wants_. Stiles has known that for a long time and this night, he wants answers. He may not get all of them here and now, but he’ll get as much as Talia will ever be willing to give the more he endears himself to her.

“When Derek was very young, he met a girl – I won’t give you her name. The long and short of it is, he fell hard and fast and while I’m not sure who it was – and I mean that – he still refuses to talk to me about it at length – there was someone that convinced him that the only way he and this girl could stay together would be to Turn her. I refused to do this for him and so… he went to someone else.”

Stiles’ eyes widen and his brow pinches in concern, “… he consulted another Alpha? After you’d already told him it was a bad idea?”

“Yes, he went to someone far outside our boundaries,” Talia responds, “This Alpha attacked the girl, giving her the Bite and I think Derek changed his mind at the eleventh hour – he tried to fight the Alpha off, but he was only around fourteen years old, still getting a hold of his Beta shift. He’s _lucky_ to have survived challenging that Alpha, but he _did_ survive it. He got the girl to safety, but by then, the damage was done.”

“I don’t understand,” Stiles starts, gesturing vaguely, “If it was another Alpha, why would Derek’s –“

“She wasn’t dead when Derek got to her.”

Ah.

Well.

That is… not promising.

“What happened to her?” Stiles asks, despite the dread coating the inside of his skin.

“She was in agony,” Talia shrugs, looking at the tabletop, “When the Bite doesn’t work, it’s – it’s a merciless death. Beyond the Bite, even, she was terribly wounded by the attack. I heard screams that night – I checked all the kids’ rooms and the only empty one was Derek’s. My intuition told me to go out there, that something was very, very wrong. I was able to hear them as soon as I stepped into the woods – I was only able to locate them at all in the woods by tracking the sound of their conversation.”

She shakes her head, looking down at her folded hands, “I heard her beg him to kill her. He was hesitant to and I rushed to get there before he would have blood on his hands that way, but I was too late.”

A fourteen year old being forced to mercy-kill a helpless girl all because of some mistake he’d tried to reverse…?

“That… that’s awful.”

“Yeah,” Talia agrees, “that night… was incomparably horrible. I never meant for Derek to see death so up-close and to be the harbinger of it… it changed him. And that is, of course, why Kate happened.”

Talia says that last part as though she’s operating under the impression that Stiles knows who _Kate_ is why she is a _thing_ that happened and not just a person.

He remembers Derek saying, then, _“terrible things to such good people…”_

Maybe Kate was a terrible thing that happened to a good person. If he asks outright, then Talia will know he isn’t following and doesn’t know who Kate is and based off that, she may not divulge any further. After all, if she thinks he already knows about this Kate person, then she’s also under the impression that Derek must have been the one to tell him about her. Who else would he have learned that from?

He can’t ask who Kate is if he actually wants to know – Derek clearly has no plans to tell him but if he plays his cards right, he might just be able to get her to tell him. It’s risky, to play poker with a Were like this, but Stiles has to give it a try.

“I… I don’t understand – how do you figure the girl and Kate are… related?”

“Well, he was _fifteen_ ,” Talia emphasizes, gesturing with both hands, “When Kate showed up, he was impressionable, he was very sad, lonely and guilt-ridden and an older woman like that, taking an interest in him – I think it made him feel like he was worth something again.”

Older woman?

This doesn’t sound good.

Thinking if he feigns some shock over Derek’s age, it might get Talia to disclose Kate’s, he asks as if he was not told this part of the story, “wait, he was only _fifteen_ when he met her?”

She looks up and away curiously, as if she’s counting backwards and she recalls, “yes… yes, I recall that specifically, because she was the only new substitute for the tenth grade that year.”

A teacher, then.

Stiles is getting nauseous.

Talia shakes her head, looking down again, “I smelled _something_ on him – I knew it was a relationship, but I had no idea it was a _predator_. By that time, he had stopped talking much and I assumed he didn’t want to tell me about a new girlfriend, like I might find it insensitive of him or something. That she was nearly fifteen years his senior was entirely outside my realm of knowledge.”

Stiles actually gags at that and Talia looks at him with pity, shrugging again, “yeah – I feel similarly and I hate her for what she did to him. But I hate myself more for this. I smelled Wolfsbane on him one day – I should have known she was a hunter. I should have picked up on it sooner. I suppose we can only be glad that I picked up on it before she could take down the family, but… strangely enough, I don’t think Derek ever considered himself a victim of her predation. I think he was more heartbroken over being betrayed… he trusted her and she used him – all to try and eliminate our Pack. He never really ventured into love again. She left a very deep wound…”

There’s a resounding silence until Talia picks her eyes up and stares directly into Stiles’. She scrutinizes him, her chin on the top of her hand as she mentions, “that’s why I knew you would be coming here. When Laura reported to me that Derek was on a legitimate date only a few weeks ago – I didn’t believe it. She let me know who you are – sent me a picture of you picking him up in that Jeep. When I confronted Derek, he wouldn’t indulge me much, but he did say he was dating. He said it was promising. That he was happy.”

There’s a deep ache in Stiles’ chest at that – he rubs at the center of his sternum, like he might be able to smother the pain away. He feels oversaturated with information – and he has to maintain some semblance of a poker face or he’s done for.

“You can understand, then, why I was rather surprised that he came home in a fury of self-loathing and has barely uttered a word in two weeks.”

Rationally, Stiles knows he should be worried that Derek murdered someone – no matter the reason, no matter how merciful and kind it was, it means he’s _capable_ of murder and that… is a lot to swallow.

“You have about ten more minutes before they come within earshot again. Anything else you need to ask before you disappear again?”

Determined and inspired, Stiles looks her in the eye as she deserves and replies, “yes. Would you ever be willing to help me?”

At this, Talia’s lips splay into a smile and she gives him a short nod, telling him, “yes. I would.”


End file.
